Unethical
The ethical are baying at my back.
I guess I just transgressed another rule.
Abundant rules these characters don’t lack.
The ethical are baying at my back—
But should I flee the noise? Or the attack
It promises? Hey, cowardice ain’t cool!
The ethical are baying at my back:
I guess I just transgressed another rule.
–Tom Riley
100 Bucks
(for Cynthia Sprowell)
You found a hundred dollars – and you failed
To search a hundred miles to find the loser
Who’d lost it? Pastor Vicious would have wailed
Aloud to hear the news, been your accuser,
And cast you out! But Tommy is a user
Of reason in the moral universe:
That cash was lost by some poor drug abuser
Who labored under vile compulsion’s curse.
I also sense – and this is even worse—
That the poor soul was on the very brink
Of self-destruction. Cynthia, immerse
Your heart in truth – and think the way I think!
You kept the money that you found. I know
You bravely saved a life by doing so!
–Tom Riley
What’s Right
What’s right is right — and that’s what gets him pissed
About the iron world of right and wrong.
Inflexibility’s what he’d resist
If what was right were not so sure and strong.
He hates the way it hurries right along
And yet seems, in its way, to stand stone still.
He hates the clear notes of its endless song.
Its underlying silence makes him ill.
The spittle that it never has to spill
Spells horror in the tunnels of his ears.
Of what is right he’s clearly had his fill.
It’s the foundation of his gnawing fears.
Yet he can’t help but keep what’s right in sight.
Oh, how it twists his nerves! It isn’t right!
–Tom Riley
Flammeus Gladius 